


it starts like this

by isoisoashley



Series: Goes Like This [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Addiction, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hope, Kent Parson asks for help, M/M, Overdose, Therapy, breaking up, kent parson is as reliable a narrator as eric bittle, which is to say he's human and skewed by his own emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:19:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8050795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoisoashley/pseuds/isoisoashley
Summary: Kent Parson goes first in the draft.Jack Zimmermann overdoses and moves back to Montreal. Some days Kent can forget the hole that Jack left in his life. the problem is he doesn't seem to want to.





	it starts like this

**Author's Note:**

> I have a difficult time with Kent Parson, largely because we have so little actual information about what happened between him and Jack. I know that there is a lot of love and hate and hard lines drawn around him and his character in fandom. I also know that there are some incredible fan works that have made me really think about Kent and what happened between him and Jack. 
> 
> We have examples of Jack being a deeply flawed human being (his treatment of Bitty when they first met coming to mind). That makes him intensely interesting to me. People can be terrible together, or for each other, because of where they're at in their lives (or their age). Who's to say Jack and Kent weren't the same? And when people are close and love each other... sometimes that causes the most damage of all. 
> 
> Here's what I know. During that famous EpiKegster Eric Bittle overhears Kent Parson say a few things:  
> "Because you shut me out!"  
> "I miss you, ok? ...I miss you." 
> 
> and Jack tells him "...you always say that." 
> 
> It clearly hasn't been radio silence between them since the overdose. We have a glimpse into Jack's life and his growth he's made because we have Bitty. 
> 
> For Kent? 
> 
> Anything could be what happened...

The thing about grief is, you can build a life around it.

 

A pretty good life, as it turns out, where you have friends and are good (really good) at your job. One where the silence of your apartment feels like a relief instead of punishment. A life where you travel with people you like and come home to a cat who loves you. A life where you can help out your mom and your sister without even having to think about it because you can throw money at pretty much anything and fix it these days. A life where you’ve accomplished all you ever dreamed of when you were young and scared and had so much left to prove ( _to yourself, to the world_ ). You can build a full life.

 

Some days you can even forget the grief is there at all.

 

* * *

 It starts like this:

 

He’s standing over his best friend in the bright white of a hospital room, squeezing his hands into fists in time with the steady beep beep of the heart monitor. His gaze is focused on the back of Jack’s hand against the sheets, the scar that runs over his knuckle, raised enough that Kent can’t remember how many times he’s sat brushing the tips of his fingers over the ridge. He focuses on the scar so he won’t have to look up and see just how different ( _how sunken and broken and frail_ ) Jack looks pressed into the thin hospital pillow.

 

There are words running through his head, hundreds of them. His brain keeps starting conversations and then switching to new ones, overlapping them with the noise of memories, conversations where he can look back and hear how desperate they both have gotten.

 

 _I’ll never be good enough for you, will I, Jack? Never be good enough. Well, that’s OK. We both know you’ll never be                 good enough either._  

 

And then Kent had gone first in the draft and Jack and ended up here.

 

It was past visiting hours. But if the years of traveling around playing hockey with a bunch of teenagers had taught them anything, it had taught them how to be sneaky. How to walk into places you weren’t supposed to be without anyone noticing ( _how to hide in an empty room until visiting hours were over and Mr and Mrs. Z had left for the night and the on-call nurse was making the rest of her rounds_ ).

 

Jack had woken up once already. His parents had texted to let him know. Jack didn’t have his phone and Kent had always had impulse control problems and so he’d done the next best thing and just snuck his way into the hospital.

 

“Kenny.” He looked up from the hand, the scar, to see that Jack’s eyes were open. Droopy. Sad. Bags you could store all their gear in. And somehow more clear than they’d been in… how long? Weeks. Months.

 

Years?

 

“Jack.” His voice cracks on the name and he feels it stab down his throat.

 

Jack’s eyes track toward the wall, brow furrowing. “You snuck in.”

 

“Yeah.” All the words swimming around his head have gone and everything in him has stilled. Except his hands, still tightening in time to the sounds of the heart monitor.

 

The silence stretches until Kent can’t handle it anymore. “You asshole.”

 

Jack closes his eyes and lets out a sigh. “I know.”

 

“You--I--” he closes his mouth, clenches his jaw. Swallows and tries again. “Did you mean it?” Is desperately glad when Jack shakes his head, just a little, because he’s not sure he could hear the answer over the pounding of his heart. “Well. That’s something then.”

 

“I just… I needed it to stop.”

 

The pounding starts up again, faster. “That doesn’t sound like you didn’t mean it,” his tone is harsh, accusatory. Probably not helping the situation. But he can barely breathe over the tangle of feelings, now that Jack’s awake, now that his eyes are open and Kent has the chance to get some answers.

 

“Not like that. I just thought… Just a little more. Maybe my head would be quiet enough to sleep.” Later, he’ll realize that this conversation is more honest than he and Jack have ever been with each other. More honest, even, than the time they lay together tangled in the sheets of Jack’s bed, sunlight spilling through the shades as Kent gathered up the courage to say _I love you._

 

_You too, Kenny. I love you too._

 

“Is this…” He can’t get the words out.

 

“This has nothing to do with you.” Jack’s voice is flat. Tired. And when he looks up he sees that Jack’s eyes are clear--and distressingly empty.

 

“Nothing to do with me.” His own voice is hollow. “Wow.” Jack’s gaze cuts to the side.

 

“Congratulations on the draft.” Jack swallows and Kent tracks the sight of his adam’s apple bobbing, feel a sort of detachment as his brain figures out what’s coming. “I think. Considering.” He struggles for the words but Kent has no desire to help him--couldn't even if he wanted to. He’s pretty sure he’s floating somewhere about a foot above his own head and can’t control his own mouth. “I think you should go.”

 

“Technically I was never here,” he shoots back, tone harsh. _Not good_ the part of him that’s floating thinks, _that’s not the right thing to say_. But the rest of him isn’t listening, too busy burrowing into the pain that’s blooming in his chest.  

 

Jack won’t meet his eyes. “I don’t think you should come back.”  

 

Kent doesn’t know whether to be thankful or sorry that he has no control over his own actions as he turns and walks from the room without a word.  

 

Years later he’s still not sure.

 

* * *

It starts like this:

 

Kent Parson goes first in the draft and moves to Nevada to join the Las Vegas Aces while Jack Zimmermann moves back to Montreal.

 

After a while ( _too long, it takes too long_ ) Kent starts hearing his own name without Jack’s attached.

 

Jack enrolls in college.

 

Kent stares at the blurb on his phone, tries to ignore the metallic taste in his mouth and the hard thud of his heart.

 

**Jack Zimmermann to attend mother’s alma mater, Samwell University .**

 

“Hey! Parse.” Swoops slaps a hand on his back, shoving him off balance enough that he stumbles forward a few steps. “Come on, man. Head out of the clouds. We’re holding up the bus.”

 

“Yeah. I. Yeah. Coming.” He clears his throat and reaches down to grab his bag. Ignores the concerned look Troy is now throwing his way, the way he waves Woodsy away as they pass.

 

“You okay, man?”

 

He nods, not sure he can trust his voice. There’s a weight on his chest and his throat is thick. He manages, somehow to get on the bus and find his seat before his knees give out. He puts in headphones and pretends like he’s listening to music, ignoring the way the rest of the team is staring.

 

 _I don’t think you should come back_.

 

Kent wishes, not for the first time, that he had stayed in that room.

 

* * *

It happens like this:

 

Kent wins the Calder. The Aces take The Cup.

 

He ends up standing outside of a shitty, wreck of a frat house, trying to figure out the best way to sneak in without being noticed.

 

Not like he’d even know where to go. He knew Jack had moved into the house thanks to the stupid school newspaper that constantly put out pieces on all the sports team. He hadn’t realized that they’d be having a party. Hadn’t really thought this through--his impulse control hadn’t been a part of his teenage years, had held steady even though he was 22--had gotten in the car and driven down with the music blasting loud enough to drown out the sound of his own common sense.

 

He won the Calder. The Aces won The Cup. And under the fierce sense of victory, of _pride_ , all Kent can think is how it was supposed to be him and Jack. How they were supposed to have this together--even if they didn’t win it together, shit, they both knew they wouldn’t be drafted to the same team--they were both good enough that they’d win and soon they’d both have a ring and then--

 

“Holy shit, is that Kent Parson?”

 

He flinches once before straightening up, hands tucked into his pocket as he feels his media smile slide onto his face. It’s a _hockey frat house_ what was he expecting?

 

“Hey.” He looks up (and up, jesus, how tall is this guy) at the blonde on the porch.

 

“Hey. Hey? RANS GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE, KENT PARSON IS STANDING ON OUR LAWN.”

 

...and there goes any chance, any chance at all of him escaping with Jack knowing he’s here. Only… only why shouldn’t he be here? He hadn’t gone back into that hospital room, hadn’t called or texted...

_not after the first time, not after he’d moved into his new apartment and had too much shitty beer and the loneliness              had filled his lungs until he didn’t think he could breathe--_

 

**10:27pm: Zimms, can we talk?**

 

 **11:02pm: Jack. please**.

**11:56pm: i miss you**.

 

Had left him alone for _two years_. Jack could give him five minutes.

 

The part of his brain that had floated up in the hospital room was back and telling him that that might be true but now was not the place to do it. Kent ignored it and strode forward, shook the hand of the drunk and very tall blonde and the man that burst out of the house (Ransom, apparently, with the blonde giant being Holster and the weird dude with the porn ‘stache calling himself Shitty). Took a couple selfies, then a few more. Accepted congratulations for what he’d done with the Aces.

 

“And The Cup. THE CUP,” Shitty threw back his head and made an obscene noise. “That last shot was a motherfuckin beaut.”

 

“It was a team effort--we just happened to want it a little more this year and had a great set of guys.” He’d said it for the media and meant it just as much as he did now. He was lucky to be playing with a great team.

 

“Man,” Ransom snorted some of whatever he was drinking and started coughing. “Sounds exactly like what Jack would say.”

 

“Yeah. Uh. Speaking of. Is he around?”

 

“Jack Zimmermann? Willingly at a kegster?” Holster laughed. “Nah, man. He’s in his room.”

 

“Come on,” Shitty threw an arm around his shoulders. “I’ll show you where he’s holed up.”

 

“Thanks.” Kent’s halfway up the stairs before Shitty says anything else.

 

“Heads up, it’s like wicked close to his bedtime so…”

 

“Yeah. I. Uh. I won’t keep him. Just was in the area and figured I’d say hi.”

 

Shitty stares at him a beat too long, his gaze more probing than it should be for someone that drunk. “Alright. JACK!” He lifts his hand and bangs on the door. “VISITOR!”

 

“Shitty--” Kent swears his heart stops beating for a minute as he hears the annoyed tone through door. “I’m not letting you in unless you’re wearing pants.”

 

Kent freezes. Looks to his left as Shitty laughs and then just opens the door. “Nah, brah. Not me. You’ve got a non-Samwell visitors. Epically Famous Kent Parson is gracing us with his presence.”

 

Which, Kent realizes with a miserable sort of clarity, is probably in the top ten worst things that Shitty could have said. By the time Jack works his way to the door, though, Kent’s got his media face on, a cocky grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

 

“Hey Zimms. Miss me?”

 

\- - - 

 

Kent pulls over three miles from Jack’s frat house and rests his head on the steering wheel.

 

That... had not gone well. There’s a faint tremor in his hands and a vise around his heart and he’s pretty sure he might throw up.

  
What had he been expecting?

 

_Sun streaming through the blinds, slicing across the bed. Jack, hair tousled, shirtless, his fingers on Kent’s hip._

 

_You too. I love you too, Kenny._

 

It had been a bad idea to come, a worse idea to stay once it became clear that he wasn’t wanted, that Jack was on the defensive. They’d always been really good at slicing each other to pieces when they got started, why he thought two years of silence would have changed anything, he didn’t know. Maybe he’d thought they’d both grown up just enough.

 

_What are you doing here, Parson?_

 

Jack had moved on, all the way, and Kent didn’t realize there would be a day where the empty look in Jack’s eyes in that hospital would be preferable to the one he just saw.

 

The anger has drained and he sits in the quiet of his car for an hour before he reaches for his phone, fingers numb.

 

**8:37pm: i didnt show up to fight with you**

 

He clenches his jaw, ignores the pounding behind his eyelids as he stares at his screen.

 

_You think I don’t see the papers? You should be focusing on your game._

 

_That’s rich, coming from you. I happened to just win The Cup. Or did you somehow miss that, living in this little hole-             in-the-wall town?_

 

_Yeah. You won The Cup--thanks to your team and a lucky shot._

 

**8:42pm:  was in the area. wanted to catch up.**

**8:44pm: text me when youre done feeling sorry for yourself clearly 2 years wasnt long enough.**

 

He hits send before he thinks it all the way through, eyes burning as he puts the car back in drive.

 

* * *

 It goes like this:

 

**(j) 7:41am: Don’t come back here.**

 

Kent stares at the message and resists the urge to heave his phone across the room at the wall.

 

**7:56am: like I want to visit your shitty frat house anyway.**

**7:58am: what I wanted was to talk to you. but whatever.**

 

**(j) 9:23am: I don’t have anything to say to you.**

 

**9:43am: yeah i guess it still doesnt matter to you what i want or need.**

 

Kent flies home to Nevada that night and spends the next day staring at his ceiling and trying to convince himself that he doesn’t give a shit what Jack Zimmermann thinks. He’s better off without him in his life--he’s won the fucking Stanley Cup, hasn’t he? And Jack is playing around on some shitty university team where he’s the greatest because everyone else sucks and, jesus, what the fuck does Kent need him for anyway?

 

The next morning he gets up and does a quick google search before punching in a number.

 

“Yeah. Hi. I, uh. Was hoping to make an appointment for a counselling session. As soon as possible would be great.” He turned and looked out the bank of windows, out toward the city where he could barely make out the edges of the Strip. “Tomorrow. Sure. 9:15, I’ll be there.”

 

He gives whatever information they ask for and hangs up his phone, reaches down to run a hand over Kit as she winds through his legs. “I think I need some help, Kit,” he murmurs, feeling something loosen in his chest as he says the words. “You’ll still love me, yeah?”

 

He picks her up and buries his face in her fur as the tears start.

 

* * *

 It goes like this:

 

6 months later he feels like he’s in a good enough place to try again.

 

**9:54pm: i shouldnt have cornered you at your place without warning**

 

It takes two days for Jack to respond.

 

**(j) 7:58am: I could have handled it better.**

 

**8:27am: im working through some shit**

**8:34am: i know its not your problem**

 

**(j) 9:16am: What do you want from me?**

 

And isn’t that a loaded question.

 

He stares at his phone, tries to think of all the things he could say.

 

_I want my best friend back._

_I miss you._

_I love you._

_Do you miss me?_

_Did I ever even mean anything to you?_

 

But he’s talked this through with Danica enough to know that what he needs maybe isn’t what Jack needs and that Kent needs to find a way to work through this without relying on Jack Zimmermann.

 

**10:10am: nothing right now. just wanted to say**

 

**(j) 10:39am: Ok.**

 

Kent snorts at the response. Jesus. Asshole. But chatty and emotional hadn’t exactly been Jack’s MO unless he was just on the right side of drunk and medicated so maybe Kent should just count his blessings. He closes his eyes and slips his phone into his pocket.

 

Ok.

 

\- - - 

 

Two months later he thumbs on his phone as they load onto the bus, almost drops it as he catches sight of the top notification. Runs through all the different things it could mean, looks for a hidden barb.

 

**(j) 9:27pm: Good game.**

 

He waits until they’re back at the hotel before he types out a reply.

 

**10:59pm: thanks**

 

* * *

 It goes like this:

 

They’re not friends.

 

Occasionally, Jack will send Kent a text about the whatever game the Aces have played.

 

Occasionally, Kent will send Jack a text back about whatever Samwell has going on. They’re a decent team, he has to admit, and have gotten better this year. The D-men are crazy in sync and there’s a new guy, a small, speedy player, who has been doing really well on Jack’s line. They might even have a chance at making it pretty far in the the NCAA Championship (another year, Kent figures, they probably have a solid shot at winning the whole thing. He’s been watching closely since they gave him the C--gotta keep an eye out for recruits for the Aces, afterall).

 

This year, Kent gets a ‘happy birthday’ text that he doesn’t know what to do with.

 

“Do you want to respond to it?”

 

“I don’t know.” He spins back and forth in the office chair he prefers to the couch where Danica sits. He’d known this would probably work out when she’d first let him take her desk chair instead of forcing him to sit still. “It’s just. Like. I don’t want to talk to him.”

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

He swings himself all the way around, lifting his feet so he can spin for a minute. “But I do want to talk him.”

 

“That’s ok too. We’ve talked about this before, Kent. Emotions aren’t linear or logical. They can change and whatever you’re feeling in the moment is OK. But you have to remember to set yourself boundaries for your own sake.”

 

“I know. I want--” He swallows, drops his feet down so that he comes to a stop. “I want him back. As my friend. I want what we had when we were younger. I want to call him up and send him funny pictures of Kit and I want him to come play for the Aces when he graduates next year.”

 

_I want him to say ‘I love you too, Kenny’ and mean it like he did back then._

 

“But I’m still really mad at him too. And sometimes when he texts all I can think is ‘fuck you’. Like. It’s not okay that we’re texting all casual like this when we’ve never talked about what happened.” He shrugs, catches her eye. “I know I’ve said all this before. I didn’t text him back,” he confesses. “It’s the first time I haven’t.” He tips his head back and stares at her ceiling. “I didn’t know what to say.”

 

\- - - 

 

He gets home from therapy and heats up his dinner. Studies the way Kit is laying upside down in the sunbeam with her legs stretched off the couch in a floppy, weird pose. Takes out his phone and snaps a picture.

 

**5:03pm: [photo sent]**

 

**(j) 7:22pm: That can’t be comfortable.**

 

**7:32pm: she seems to like it.**

 

**(j) 7:35pm: She’s cute.**

 

Kent stares at the response, then over to where Kit is absently batting around one of her toys. They’re not friends, he thinks.

 

But it’s a start.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is intended to be the first in a series but can be stand alone. 
> 
> I want, very much, to write up how this leads to the conversation Bitty overhears...and what comes after.


End file.
